Posts Tagged ‘Sen. Joe Biden’

What promises — given the events of the week, the bailout plan, all of this, what promises have you and your campaigns made to the American people that you’re not going to be able to keep?

Biden says that the Obama/Biden ticket will cut back on foreign assistance and cut some of the Bush Admin’s tax cuts (slyly, he manages to label them as McCain’s. You ain’t slick.). He then says that they cannot hold up on: (1) providing new jobs through an energy policy, (2) education, and (3) the big universal healthcare plan. Which I would love to know how, after a 800 billion-plus bailout, will be paid for.

Palin swings the discussion back to…energy. Um, no relevance, Governor. But then she says this:

There is not. And how long have I been at this, like five weeks? So there hasn’t been a whole lot that I’ve promised, except to do what is right for the American people, put government back on the side of the American people, stop the greed and corruption on Wall Street.

And the rescue plan has got to include that massive oversight that Americans are expecting and deserving. And I don’t believe that John McCain has made any promise that he would not be able to keep, either.

Point blank, and to the point.

Score: Biden 2, Palin 2.5. Biden gets a point for sticking to the script (Obama basically said the exact same stuff last week). Palin gets another point for actually answering the question.

(To Palin) Last year, Congress passed a bill that would make it more difficult for debt-strapped mortgage-holders to declare bankruptcy, to get out from under that debt. This is something that John McCain supported. Would you have? (To Biden, later) Sen. Biden, you voted for this bankruptcy bill. Sen. Obama voted against it. Some people have said that mortgage- holders really paid the price.

Palin answers with a flat “yes.” Short speech on McCain warning about problems with Fannie/Freddy.

Biden says, “Mortgage-holders didn’t pay the price. Only 10 percent of the people who are — have been affected by this whole switch from Chapter 7 to Chapter 13 — it gets complicated.” You have to hear the audio, but he absolutely stumbled through the word “complicated.” He then proceeds to go after McCain on bankruptcy issues.

What is true and what is false about what we have heard, read, discussed, debated about the causes of climate change?

Energy stuff, finally. Palin acknowledges that climate change is happening, and says she doesn’t want to argue the causes, but would rather talk about what to do about it. Plug for energy independence, on the basis that we’re supporting environmental damage by importing energy sources from countries who don’t care about the environment. Not bad.

Do you support, as they do in Alaska, granting same-sex benefits to couples?

Everyone says no, and no to the follow-up about supporting gay marriage. Palin explains that she doesn’t want to support anything that would lead to a change in the traditional definition of marriage, which brought on the follow up.

Alright, on to the real stuff. Going to take this question by question, as this was probably the most important debate of all of them:

As America watches these things happen on Capitol Hill, was this(referencing the week’s drama in Congress over the bailout) the worst of Washington or the best of Washington that we saw play out?

Biden said it represented “neither the best or worst of Washington, but it’s evidence of the fact that the economic policies of the last eight years have been the worst economic policies we’ve ever had.” Um…policies that everyone voted on, including yourself…yes? And isn’t the President responsible for oversight of his department secretaries? Don’t they answer to him? So, you’re going to create another agency (read: expand the government!) to do the President’s job for him? Um…no.

At this point, Palin didn’t say a whole lot. The soccer game analogy worked for her, but then she went to the “McCain is a reformer” script. That’s where she needed to be, but her response paled in comparison to Biden’s.

Score: Biden 1, Palin .5 (by virtue of the fact that she successfully stuck to the script).

How, as vice president, would you work to shrink this gap of polarization which has sprung up in Washington, which you both have spoken about here tonight?

Biden says he’s reached across the aisle his whole career…and then swings back to attack McCain. Huh?

Palin defends McCain, touts her record of reform, and then swings to attack Obama. Huh?

Score: Biden 1, Palin .5(didn’t answer the question, guys…)

(Referencing subprime lending)Who do you think was at fault? Was it the greedy lenders? Was it the risky home-buyers who shouldn’t have been buying a home in the first place? And what should you be doing about it?

Palin: “Darn right it was the predator lenders, who tried to talk Americans into thinking that it was smart to buy a $300,000 house if we could only afford a $100,000 house.” Darn right, indeed. Plug for government oversight from the people, and for personal responsibility. Very good.

Biden goes on the attack again McCain, and swings the discussion to health care via deregulation, and ends on a call for tax relief. Nothing about subprime lending.

Palin attacks both Obama AND Biden on their votes to raise taxes. Biden parries and says McCain did the same thing. He also says that Palin didn’t answer his question about deregulation, or defend McCain on same (even though that wasn’t the topic of discussion at this point). Which lead to this from Palin:

And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I’m going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also.

Score: Biden 1, Palin 1.5. Never got an answer from Biden on the subprime mortgage question. I gave Palin half a point for staying on topic and adjusting/responding to Biden’s attacks. And another half point for the verbal smack down.

Sen. Biden, we want to talk about taxes, let’s talk about taxes. You proposed raising taxes on people who earn over $250,000 a year. The question for you is, why is that not class warfare and the same question for you, Gov. Palin, is you have proposed a tax employer health benefits which some studies say would actually throw five million more people onto the roles of the uninsured. I want to know why that isn’t taking things out on the poor, starting with you, Sen. Biden.

Cause it’s late, and I gotta get up in the morning, here’s three quick observations on tonight’s vice presidential debate:

1. If you’re undecided about who won in the morning (and my thought’s below), get up and take a trip over to a liberal-leaning blog. Or turn on MSNBC. If all you hear is harsh “criticism” of Sarah Palin-and nothing (or at best, very little) about Joe Biden, then she won. If this was a Biden victory, all you would hear is about how he “crushed” her.

2. I respect Joe Biden. Disagree with his politics, but he’s sincere. And I won’t tolerate any talk about the mention of his first wife’s passing, so keep it to yourself. He was handicapped tonight, in all fairness.

3. Handicap aside, Palin clearly won. She showed a knowledge-if not command-of the major issues she’s stumbled over as of late, and even worked in a few quirky attacks along the way.

My more thoughtful analysis in the morning, after some rest and a read through the transcript.

Under the economic plan proposed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, people earning more than $250,000 a year would pay more in taxes while those earning less — the vast majority of American taxpayers — would receive a tax cut.

“We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people,” Biden said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Noting that wealthier Americans would indeed pay more, Biden said: “It’s time to be patriotic … time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”

Why would I want to vote for someone whose policy is to give to the less well-off from the better off? Granted, I’d (probably) be a recipient of whatever was given out…but this just doesn’t seem fair to those who worked for what they have. If I were in the $250K-plus category, I’d be seriously pissed at this.

How does this motivate the less well off to want to do something about their situation? People will become content on waiting for their yearly “bailout” from the government. If I’m home with 3-4 kids and unemployed, why would I want to go out and get a job when I know that the government is going to hand me someone else’s money? Hell, I’d go have more kids in the hopes of getting more money.

Economics isn’t my strong suit. But using the current economic crisis to define patriotism just isn’t sitting too well with me.

“Make no mistake about this, Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight,” Biden said testily when a voter told Biden he was glad the Delaware senator had been chosen and not Clinton.

“She’s a truly close personal friend and she is qualified to be President of the United States of America, she’s easily qualified to be Vice President of the United States of America and quite frankly it might have been a better pick than me,” he continued.

Now, self-depreciation occasionally serves its purposes; I do it on occasion. But when a good majority of the dhimmicratic party once (still?) believed (believes?) that Hillary should’ve been the VP nominee, it’s probably not smart to say she’s more qualified…even if you’re just doing your “normal guy” shitick.

“If you want change, you want the Democratic Party,” Cohen said. “Barack Obama was a community organizer like Jesus, who our minister prayed about. Pontius Pilate was a governor.”

Now, in the good representative’s defense, the first place I saw this was on Daily Kos (through JJP). And historically, there may be some accuracy to the statement; Pilate was definitely a governor, and I guess whether Jesus could be seen as a “community organizer” is open to interpretation.

But to add names to the statement just makes the inference that Obama is more like The One and Palin is more like the other.

It’s important to judge the Bush Administration and John McCain by their own standard.

It’s time to shift responsibility to the Iraqi people.

He also mentioned that now the Bush Administration was negotiating witht he Iraqi government the same sort of withdrawal plan that Obama had pressed for. He ended with the question, “Who has been right?”

My points of contention are these:

First off, if you are to judge the Bush Administration’s actions in Iraq “by their own standard,” that would lead you back to the benchmarks legislated by Congress in 2007, at the beginning of the surge. In September of 2007, GAO reported the Iraqi government had “met 3, partially met 4, and did not meet 11 of its 18 benchmarks.” They also said that,

Overall, key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds.

Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress, according to a report by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

The embassy judged that the only remaining shortfalls were the Baghdad government’s failure to enact and implement laws governing the oil industry and the disarmament of militia and insurgent groups, and continuing problems with the professionalism of the Iraqi police. All other goals — including preparations for upcoming elections, reform of de-Baathification and disarmament laws, progress on enacting and spending Iraq’s budget, and the capabilities of the Iraqi army — were rated “satisfactory.”

Now, call me crazy, but going from meeting 3 of your 18 goals to meeting 15 of them damn sure sounds positive. Maybe I’m wrong. But if that’s all the information I have to go on to pass judgement, I think the judgement would be favorable.

My second beef: Obama and Biden (as well as most dhimmicrats) seem to think that we should begin to shift responsibility for Iraq to the Iraqi people.

Read that sentence again. Maybe a third time, if necessary.

You probably missed it between the DNC, RNC, and Hurricane Gustav, but over the weekend, the guys and gals of Multinational Force-Iraq (MNF-I) handed over security of Anbar province to Iraqi Security Forces. Why is that important? Two reasons:

Anbar was the base of operations for al-Qaeda in Iraq…and also where the Awakening movement-locals turning against al-Qaeda-began. It was easily the most violent province in Iraq up until the surge; in fact, a good majority of surge forces were sent to quiet Anbar.

But that’s not even the most important reason. Anbar was the 11th of Iraq’s 18 provinces to be handed over to Iraqi control.

Eleven of eighteen. Meaning this has been done ten times before.

So when you tell me that we should begin to hand responsibility to the Iraqis, I’m compelled to call bullshit. Cause we already have been.

Which leads me to my last point.

It’s obvious that the surge and the counterinsurgency strategy put in place by GEN Petraeus in Iraq have been largely successful. Have they solved all of Iraq’s problems? No….but they were never designed to.

So, to all those who would suggest that we need a “new” strategy in Iraq…why, especially when our current one is working; when-even by the most liberal of standards-it has brought about a marked change in Iraq’s stability and security?